(v. t.) To lament; to bewail; to grieve over; as, to wail one's death.
(v. i.) To express sorrow audibly; to make mournful outcry; to weep.
(n.) Loud weeping; violent lamentation; wailing.
Example Sentences:
(1) You couldn't get much more bohemian than the music playing in this room of tiny round tables, first French crooner Serge Gainsbourg and then cabaret freak Scott Walker wailing of their obelisk-size pain.
(2) Every now and then some rich Oga or Madam comes along in their bulletproof cars and wailing sirens, and distorts the delicate equilibrium of this body of traffic.
(3) In groups 1 and 2, clusters of cylindrical tubules, typical of the male gland, decreased in number and disappeared almost completely 2 wailed in these two groups throughout the remaining period of experiment.
(4) "Barcelona's habit of playing midfielders in defence will do them more harm than good," he wails.
(5) "Gnnmph, I can't 'ave it 'ere, I 'aven't 'ad my enema," wails a labouring housewife, straining fruitlessly on a communal tenement bog as horrified neighbours look on in their rollers.
(6) There were moments when music seemed to struggle to be heard over the tocking of iPod clickwheels and the wailing of record company executives.
(7) The army cleared itself of responsibility for the killing of a Palestinian family on a Gaza beach three weeks ago during an artillery barrage after many Israelis were shaken by television pictures of a traumatised child wailing over the body of her father.
(8) While Arsenal fans have spent the last nine years gnashing and wailing, Hull supporters have cheered the incredible resurrection of their club, as David Conn explains here .
(9) Some family members, after years of begging for mercy and receiving none, broke down and wailed.
(10) The big story Once upon a time the Oscar ceremony was a comforting drone punctuated only by the odd song-and-dance routine and the banshee wailing of overwhelmed best actress award winners.
(11) Elsewhere on the carpet Quentin Tarantino is having a bop with Uma Thurman (again), Xavier Dolan is wearing an outrageous tux (again) and the boring normal people at the barriers are wailing for stars' attention (again).
(12) Later that night, Lola wailed in the street as the police prised her baby from her arms and led her into custody.
(13) Family members who had gathered at a hotel in Beijing wailed as they heard the news.
(14) Naderi offered his prayers to Dhu’s family at the end of his evidence, saying: “I wish I was able to pick up any abnormal signs that may have made a difference.” Carol Roe ran crying from the courtroom, her wail flowing back through the door to where Naderi was seated in the witness box.
(15) Sorrowful wails and sobs resounded as thousands of Rwandans packed the country's main sports stadium to mark the 20th anniversary of the beginning of a devastating 100-day genocide.
(16) Sandy breaking out of the compound BB3 Sandy's insistence on his quirkiness got rather wearing, so it was just as well he made a bid for escape, with his new best friend Alex wailing, "Be careful, Sandy, be careful!"
(17) Starbucks admitted that while it can (quite incredibly) claim that its 700 UK stores are not profitable, through wails of what seemed like crocodile tears, its 30 coffee traders in Switzerland make an enormous 20% profit margin despite never seeing a coffee bean; a fact that the committee could not have helped noting might be related to the 12% tax it pays in that state.
(18) Their players are distraught and making a mess of everything, while the TV producer here is having an absolute ball picking out wailing Brazilians in the crowd.
(19) Another shows a scene of villagers wailing with grief: “Villagers grieve as their friend is put into the ambulance,” the voiceover says.
(20) Among those who finally decided that Kobani was on the brink was Mukdad Bozan, travelling with his wife, a wailing baby and three bedraggled older children.
Whimper
Definition:
(v. i.) To cry with a low, whining, broken voice; to whine; to complain; as, a child whimpers.
(v. t.) To utter in alow, whining tone.
(n.) A low, whining, broken cry; a low, whining sound, expressive of complaint or grief.
Example Sentences:
(1) He went with a bang not a whimper: two of his last contributions to the New Republic were a trenchant critique of the history of the six-day war by Michael Oren, now Israeli ambassador to Washington, and an evisceration of Koba the Dread, Martin Amis's purported book on Stalin.
(2) The snowman's quest is accompanied by a fey, irritating cover version of Frankie Goes to Hollywood's The Power of Love , in which Holly Johnson is replaced by a breathy chanteuse whimpering at the piano like a dog that needs taking for a walk.
(3) On day four you ask for the salad as a main and then, when they refuse, order the duck again with a whimper.
(4) If they had come out fighting, we could have fought back; coming out crawling, whimpering at their own inadequacy, all we can do is accept that they've done their best.
(5) The catch-22 in this ambition, however, was that nothing serious was likely to go wrong so long as wets such as Walker, James Prior, Francis Pym and Ian Gilmour confined their opposition to her "revolution" to an occasional whimper of dissent.
(6) The systematic hacking of social security from this country's most vulnerable has been done with barely a whimper of remorse from the most powerful.
(7) Elsewhere, the corpses are swapped for tragedy and the Muttley chuckles turn to whimpers.
(8) "Ah just want to sort out the funeral," she blubbed at the preternaturally patient Chesney, overbite quivering like a hovercraft as the prospect of another 15 years of storylines involving the widow whimpering in her HMP Plot Device netball bib lumbered horrifyingly into view.
(9) A young title called Bang, from the makers of Classic Rock, closed without a whimper.
(10) He was rarely seen on the touchline as Fulham slipped towards their inevitable conclusion with barely a whimper.
(11) Homeless and dying, she roams the neighbourhood, whimpering and laughing.
(12) She was later to tell police that it was a cold morning and the "abnormally thin" child was whimpering.
(13) You'll be too busy whimpering and chewing on your fist.
(14) This cycle is broken when a Looper called Joe (played by Brick star Joseph Gordon-Levitt) comes face-to-face with a target who won't just kneel there, whimper and die – himself.
(15) Though this is not good news, the euro may then actually end: not with a bang, but a whimper.
(16) At half-time against Newcastle he implored the players not to end their outstanding season "with a whimper".
(17) All of this has been done without even a whimper from the Liberal Democrats, who have lost any remaining vestige of credibility on civil liberties.
(18) The annoying thing about political storms like this is that real people are affected, meaning that you can't have too much sport without pausing to remember the whimpering unfortunates who have been on hold to HMPO, assured sincerely and repeatedly of the importance of their call, since last Tuesday.
(19) Finally, horribly, whimperingly, his victim said: "I don't know."
(20) The results suggested that repetitive hand and finger movements, stereotypic manipulation of objects, and making a face(s) mainly occur within arousal situations whereas eye poking, whimpering, and sucking thumbs or fingers especially are linked to monotony.